ALTHOUGH IT may not be immediately obvious, Manchester is a university that has been heavily in debt: in July 2006 its operational deficit was an incredible £30 million. By the end of the 2006/07 academic year, it had dropped to a comparatively meagre £12.4 million. In its defence, the university claims that the 2004 merger with UMIST coupled with a moratorium on job losses until 2007, damaging due to "abnormally high levels of pay inflation in the sector", caused the shortfall.
In 2007, with the temporary ban over, the university began the process of shedding 650 staff. National media interest has centred on the removal of Terry Eagleton and Sheila Rowbotham, whose ‘contracts were not renewed’, but perhaps more important has been the removal of staff crucial for the operation of resources such as the library or IT support. This was felt most over the Christmas revision period, when computers in the John Ryland’s library would regularly stop working and were not fixed for days, whilst the lines at the under-staffed circulation desk were anything but circulatory.
Meanwhile the Arthur Lewis Building was opened last September, costing £31 million, followed by University Place, which cost another £60 million. Both buildings have been part of a £600 million expansion, an investment that would have paid the debt off twenty times over.
In contrast to the expansion, the total wage bill is £400 million, prompting the question of why the cost of the expansion was a bigger priority than retaining key staff and student services. Meanwhile the Vice-Chancellor, Alan ‘call me President’ Gilbert, makes over a quarter of a million pounds each year – more than the principles of Oxford and Cambridge. Martin Amis famously makes £80,000 for 28 hours work a year, whilst staff-student contact times have been halved over the last twenty years.
An obvious counter-point to these concerns is that the university is investing in our future, a claim bombastically splashed across the hoardings along Oxford Road, but unfortunately this is a complete lie. The Arthur Lewis Building cannot seriously claim to be oriented towards its students, considering that undergraduates, and recently masters students as well, have to arrange meetings with their tutors 24 hours in advance, a situation that both students and staff are unhappy with. This policy is enforced by the ludicrous key card system that prevents students from any sort of movement around the buildings whilst unaccompanied by members of staff. Why paying students require authorised access to a place of learning is beyond comprehension.
Meanwhile, the university has embarked on numerous contentious projects with corporations that many students find ethically dubious – including BP, Tesco, and BAE – with absolutely no input from those whose fees partly fund the university. Although many other students may find no problem with these deals, the point is that there is absolutely no debate. After frustrations were made known last October with the brief occupation of the Martin Harris building, Gilbert agreed to a public ‘debate’; a mode of ‘participation’ that we consider insincere. A motto more apt for the university than Cognitio, Sapientia, Humanitas, would be We Will Look Into It.
I believe that all students, regardless of political position, have an interest in the lack of any genuine participation offered to us. I am concerned that the expansion of the university has partitioned staff and students and isolated them from the resources necessary for an education; that although possessing newer buildings, the university is a poorer place without key staff; that our level of debt is bad enough and should not be increased for future generations of students.
Some students concerned with these trends have formed ‘Reclaim the Uni’, a group hoping to provide an environment for the free exchange of ideas and dissent, since there have been no genuine measures provided for us through which we can vocalise our concerns. ‘Reclaim the Uni’ provides a medium through which your voice can be heard, notably through a protest has been planned for later this month. This is not about politics – this is about being heard by an administration that has ignored us for too long.
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